Writing Questions and Answers and stuff
So, it's been awhile since I've done a writing tips. That's largely because I've been writing. And I've also come up with a bunch of smaller topics that I haven't been able to flesh out into a larger article. So, I thought that I'd give a bit of tips on various topics. At the end, I'll mark which writing tips articles I want to expand into. How do you finish a project? So... this is one has been on the burner for awhile, ever since I finished the first draft of the Growing Around novel. And it deserves its full writing tips, but the problem is that there isn't much I can say. Anyway... how do I'' finish a project? I listen to very upbeat music, like say... link. I wrote large portions of both drafts listening to that. But if there's general advice I can give it's this - never stop working during a lull. You know that time where you just can't seem to dig any deeper and write a little further and the words won't come? Yeah, that's the LAST place you should ever stop. The best place to stop is when you're excited and the words are flowing like crazy. It'll incentivize you come back and not sit on the project doing nothing for three months. "Inspiration" isn't a time-sensitive thing; it's an environment sensitive thing. The part that's fun to write now will be fun to write tomorrow. As for those dull as dirt, can't dig any deeper moments... the best advice I have is... just write. In those moments, write and don't give a shit, even if you just list the details. Remember, the first draft is not going to be perfect and you WILL have to rewrite. And trust me, when the ideas are down, it becomes so much easier to expand on the details. These moments aren't fun, but you have to remember that you can only get to the fun part by writing through. Skipping around generally isn't recommended because you'll only become more and more hesitant to write these parts. Writing Tips: How do you finish a project?'' Besides writing/grammar, which skills come in handy when writing fiction? When writing fiction, there is no such thing as useless knowledge. Anything can really come in handy if you know how to apply it. And in certain projects require specialty knowledge most of all (a story about a poker tournament most requires knowledge about poker strategies). But if we're talking in general, psychology is the most useful skill you can have. It'll help you better understand how your characters react to things, and it can give you a very good grasp on their individual motivations. It's applicable to all genres. Other than that it does depend on the genre. History is really helpful, especially in science fiction oddly enough. History is also very useful in fantasy. It's also a good idea to get a good understand of world religions and how they formed. Geography is excessively useful when world-building, as is evolutionary science. Mythology and ancient cultures can build worlds on their own. You can't go wrong with anthropology, and sociology complements that. It's very rare to find a work where none of these skills come in handy. Child psychology is also very... very useful. Writing Tips: Alternative skills Besides writing/grammar, which skills are needed to be a good writer? 'This is not a repeat question. These type of skills are the ones that determine if you're the kind of ''person who would be good at writing. You're going to need a lot of introspection. You're going to need to be able to humor ideas that offend you. You're going to need to be able to take criticism, and as a corollary you're going to need to figure out which kinds of criticisms are good and bad. If you just listen to everything, you'll fail. And if you don't listen to anything, you will also fail. You need to be able to both love a project and be absolutely dedicated while at the same time be able to hack it to pieces. You need to have absolute determination and a "never give up" attitude while at the same time knowing when it's best to quit and move onto something else. You need to be able to look into other works, works that you absolutely love and break them down, figure out what doesn't work about them and what does. For example, in Chamber of Secrets J.K. Rowling reintroduces Quidditch like this "the most popular sport in the wizarding world (six tall goal posts, four flying balls, and fourteen players on broomsticks)." This is a literal quote from the book, and it's actually bad. This isn't descriptive enough to give a clear image to new readers of the series and it's pointless for returning readers. The entire parenthesis segment should have been cut in the final draft. Writing Tips:'' The Writer's Toolbox'' 'Why does the middle book in a trilogy usually suck? '''It's usually agreed upon that the second book in a series, usually the middle book in a trilogy, sucks. There are a few different reasons for this, but here's the general reason. Usually ground-up trilogies are built as one big story, just divvied up into a beginning, a middle, and an end. In this case, the beginning is filled with wonder and awe of a whole new world. And the ending is climactic, filled with action, as everything comes to an end. The middle tends to be neither of these things. The middle tends to take pieces from the beginning and moves them into place for the end, which isn't very interesting on its own. The middle book should follow a beginning, middle, end structure, but they frequently don't. In fact, they almost ''always forgo the ending to stop on a cliffhanger. How do you avoid this? Actually have a satisfying resolution. Don't be afraid of your audience leaving you. If they've enjoyed two out of three of your books thoroughly, they'll read the third. You can't just hope that the success of your first book will keep people excited through something lesser, boring, or mundane. The second book has a lot of potential. It's the first time you're able to really use your concept without needing to waste a lot of time establishing your concept, allowing you to get straight into the story. Writing Tips: Second Book Syndrome 'Why are so many children's works fantasy? Do they have to be fantasy? '''No children's works don't have to be fantasy, but most are because they play to the strengths of children's literature. Children have a higher suspension of disbelief. They're able to accept more fantastical concepts more easily than your typical adult reader, which really lends its hand to speculative fiction. You don't have to explain why a wardrobe can lead people to Narnia for instance. Also, children don't need much to buy into magic hiding behind the vigil. It doesn't mean that they believe that magic really exists, but they're much more prone to wanting it to at the very least. Honestly, this is probably best illustrated by the differences between ''The Hobbit a story written for children and The Lord of the Rings a story written for adults. The Hobbit basically has one day a wizard and a bunch of dwarves taking this random guy on an adventure, barely handwaving it as "because ancestors." In The Lord of the Rings, we hear all about Sauron and how he's going to destroy the world before the adventure can begin. The Hobbit ''movies are actually a pretty good demonstration of what happens when you try to tell a story originally written for children for an adult audience. It gets over-winded and bogged down to a needless crawl, and you just make the product worse by trying to justify the absurdity. The live-action Disney ''Alice in Wonderland is another great example of that effect. In the book, Alice falls down a rabbit hole into a fantasy world because she does and she's able to explore a fantasy world that's just really there. Children's stories don't need to justify their fantasy, as long as it's an engrossing experience. Adult stories do need to justify their fantasy. And in the live-action Alice in Wonderland you get... a mess of convoluted explanations. Not that it can't be done well. American McGee's Alice is a great transcription of a children's story to an adult audience, but that required changing... a lot. It's not the same story. I'm planning on doing a full Writing Tips article on this. Writing Tips: Children's Fantasy vs. Adult Fantasy; Writing for Kids (version 2); Suspension of Disbelief; Age Transcription 'What's the best way to get ideas? '''The question "what if" is your friend. It could be as simple as "what if I went back in time" or "what if Ancient Egypt never existed?" to complex things. You should actually keep this question in mind when watching/reading other works, especially the bad ones. That's the general piece of advice. There's also idea mining. Relatively recently I watched the movie ''Imagine That, a terrible family movie from 2009 starring Eddie Murphy. Honestly, it's so bad that even though it's live action, I so want to review it. Eddie Murphy's practically a cartoon character in it anyway. So, in the movie Eddie Murphy gets stock tips from his daughter's imaginary friends that vastly help his career. This forces him to stand in his apartment and spin around with a blanket on his head. Also, you never see the imaginary friends because this movie only had a 55 million dollar budget and couldn't afford set pieces or actors. Alright, so... the question is "what would make this thing work?" Well, it could very easily be a sort of Alice in Wonderland story with a father who finds that his daughter's imaginary world is real. And you build something like that from the ground up. It sounds like plagiarism, but it isn't as long as you make it distinctive enough to give it its own original identity. Remember that there's nothing new under the sun. And some of the most popular works ever are masterpieces of previously done ideas. Harry Potter was not the first story about a child going to a school to learn magic. For instance, there's Wizard's Hall, which came out in 1991 about a young boy who goes to a place called Wizard's Hall where trains to be a wizard. Come up with the beginning of any story, from the modern ones today to classic stories and ask "how many ways could I take this?" Writing Tips: ''Idea Mining; Inspiration vs. Plagiarism; Fixing Failures ''When do I end/begin a chapter? Whenever you want. There are literally no rules about chapters. You start a new chapter whenever you feel like it. Writing Tips: Random Tips '''~~~~~ And that's the general idea of what I've got so far. Sorry that I haven't been productive here as I probably should have been. I've been very busy revising the Growing Around ''novel (Writing Tips: ''Revising Your Work). I'm at 25k words, which is probably a third of it. Then I've got to go back and make sure that all of the new stuff is up to snuff. And finally, I've got to copy edit my book. Copy editing is tedious as fuck because you've got to be meticulous as fuck going through each individual sentence and make sure that it's written as clearly as it can be done. You've got to check to make sure that every grammatical rule is followed and not a comma is out of place. So... that's fun.... Category:Miscellaneous